Together
If you've stumbled across this website, chances are you've heard that Annika Johnson and Dakota Ryan have decided to get married. You've come to the right place.
We've been thinking a lot recently about what it means to be "together," whether there's still a reason to have traditional "marriage" in our lives (and in modern, secular society more generally), and if so how to conduct a marriage in a morally defensible way. Ultimately, after years of discussion (and a surprise proposal), we've agreed for a variety of reasons to formalize our commitment to each other with a marriage. We wanted to take this opportunity to express our gratitude to those people that have acted as guiding forces around us during the past 24 years. We are the way that we are because you are the way that you are. Our marriage is the unique expression of many forces coming together, myriad tributaries all flowing into a single riverbed, together.
Together is a funny word. As a couple, we can be together; as a family, we can come together; and, when plans go astray, we must find a way to pull ourselves together again. Like the blooming of a sapling into a tree, growing together is a dynamic, lifelong process, and not something that can be traced back to a single moment or a single day or even a single year. The accoutrements of our union -- the paperwork, the rings, and the event itself -- are simply the extension and expression of our love, a love that has been blossoming gradually over the six years that we've known each other and an intangible force that we will continue to cultivate. In other words: Marriage, for us, is just the icing on the cake.
As we undergo the process of "grafting" our family trees together, we've also decided to pair a "marriage of true minds" with a merger of two names by cross-pollinating "Ryan" and "Fraser" (Annika's mother's maiden name) into "Reier." Pronounced "RYE - ur," not only is this novel surname a palindrome, but it also pulls in Annika's family heritage by employing the Scandinavian/Continental spelling. Reier is Dutch for "Heron," and as we've explored possible surname options we've grown to love the natural, historical, and symbolic associations that herons have. Learn more about herons and our choice of the name Reier in Our Story.
You can also Contact us directly if you have any questions or thoughts. Thanks again for all of your support as we continue our grand journey into the unknown. Together.